How Liberace Hid The Fact He Was Gay During The Homophobic '50s

Entertainer Liberace seated at his piano in his Beverly
Hills home in California on June 17, 1961.AP

The ‘50s, like the decades leading up to them, were an intensely
homophobic period. Muscle cars and macho men were the order of
the day. Although Lee knew that many of Hollywood’s most famous
and desirable men were gay or bisexual, none of them dared reveal
the truth.

Lee confessed to me that he began dating women to suppress the
growing rumors about his own sexuality. If anyone dared to
question his masculinity, he needed to be able to flaunt pictures
of his latest girlfriend.

He had no trouble getting all the dates he wanted and he gloried
in escorting well-known entertainers to parties, getting his
picture taken with Susan Hayward, Gale Storm, Rosemary Clooney,
Mae West, and Judy Garland. Mae was the only one of his so-called
lady friends I actually met. As they say in Texas, Mae was a
hoot! She and Lee were an unpredictable twosome who enjoyed
trying to outdo each other’s outrageousness.

The girl he almost married didn’t compare to Mae when it came to
nerve. JoAnn Del Rio, a Las Vegas dancer, had good looks and a
sweet personality. Undoubtedly the entire Liberace family heaved
a sigh of relief as they watched her relationship with Lee
progress. For a while, it must have seemed as if Lee would
finally settle down to a “normal” life and have a family.

Lee and JoAnn became engaged in
1953 and even set a date for a wedding -- a year away. From all
reports, Lee liked JoAnn a lot, a first for him when it came to
women. He courted her with gifts of flowers and perfume, gifts
that foreshadowed the truly extravagant presents he would later
give his male lovers.

When it came to JoAnn, the problem was not that he didn’t like
her; it was that he still loved men. After Lee’s death, JoAnn’s
father was reported to have claimed responsibility for ending the
engagement because he knew Lee was gay. But Lee told me he never
planned to walk down the aisle, with JoAnn or anyone else. His
engagement served to squelch the rumors about his sexuality
--period!

Many homosexual men enjoy relationships with women. There are a
few who even come to love them, as friends or as temporary sexual
partners. Not Lee! He had to forcibly control his dislike and
distrust of most of the women he dated. He complained that all of
them were too demanding, an opinion of females that he’d formed
in childhood.

When I asked if he’d ever had sexual relations with a woman he
told me he’d had a couple of experiences, but complained that the
way women smelled revolted him. While dating JoAnn publicly, he
confessed that he continued to have secret dates with young men.
By the end of 1955, JoAnn Del Rio was just a footnote to
Liberace’s history.

The older Lee got, the more younger men appealed to him. In that
regard, he was a Dracula who never wearied of the taste and touch
of youth. By his 50s he preferred dating boys in their teens.

There have been rumors that Lee had an affair with Rock Hudson
early in their careers. But Rock wasn’t any more Lee’s type than
Lee was Rock’s. The supposed affair never happened. In the years
we were together, Lee never mentioned knowing Rock. Although
hundreds of celebrities came to Lee’s shows, Rock never made an
appearance. The two men moved in completely different circles,
socially and professionally.

However, the books I’ve read about Hudson’s life reveal startling
parallels to Lee’s. Both men had been abandoned by their fathers
and dominated by their mothers. As adults the two of them devoted
a great deal of time and energy to creating a fictional personal
history for public consumption.

AP

Neither man could deal with anything distasteful -- an argument,
the illness of a parent, getting rid of a lover -- and both used
others to do their dirty work.

Lee never used male prostitutes. He was an intensely romantic man
who preferred the thrill of the chase rather than the cold
reality of a cash transaction. Young men eager to make a
connection with a big show-business personality usually jumped at
the chance for a date with him. He used his success, his fame as
foreplay. If they pleased him he would keep them around for a
while -- a week, a month, a year or two. If not, he would send
them on their way with a gift. generous to friends who granted
him favors.

During those first years of fame, he became even more skilled at
leading a double life. Onstage he smiled sweetly and flirted with
his fans. In private he built an enormous and expensive
collection of pornography that he shared at all-male parties.
Although the family never discussed Lee’s sexual identity, they
had to know he was gay. His mother may have known, too. But she
undoubtedly thought there was nothing wrong with her son that the
right woman couldn’t cure.

Touring abroad gave him an occasional break from his problems. He
said he felt safer, more free to be himself in countries where
his name was not yet a household word. In the mid-‘50s he was
invited to play the famed London Palladium and he jumped at the
offer. To be asked to perform there signaled Lee’s arrival as a
star of international magnitude. He would have other, greater
thrills, but that first show at the Palladium ranked right up
there with his first appearance in the Hollywood Bowl. London, he
said, sounded like heaven. Before he returned to the States it
was to feel more like hell.

Lee’s enthusiastic British audiences were very much like the ones
he attracted in the States -- mostly middle-aged, working- class
housewives. He enjoyed a huge box-office success in Britain, but
the critics united in attacking him. One columnist for the London
Daily Press launched an all-out war, describing Lee as a “deadly,
sniggering, snuggling, giggling, fruit-flavored, mincing, ice-
covered heap of mother love.”

For the first time in his career Lee was publicly branded as gay,
and it devastated him. He imagined himself stripped of his fame,
success, wealth, and power -- all the things he’d worked so hard
to achieve. He burned with impotent rage for days. In Vegas,
where he had connections, he’d have known exactly how to handle
the situation. He’d have used his influence, his power, or his
dangerous friends. But in London he felt helpless. So he struck
back in the only way he could. He sued.

Lee didn’t care what the lawsuit cost in time, effort, or money.
Money was surely no obstacle to the highest paid performer in the
world. In the past he’d used his wealth to attract friendship and
love. In England he used it as a tool to buy vindication and
revenge.

Lee made up his mind to prove, for all time, that he wasn’t gay,
even if it meant bringing another woman into his life. This time
she would be far better known than JoAnn Del Rio.

Olympic skating champion Sonja Henie in a practice
session at the European Figure Skating Championships in Prague,
January 28, 1934.AP

Sonja Henie had been the world’s premiere figure skater in
the 1920s and ‘30s. She’d parlayed 10 world championships and
three Olympic gold medals into an enormously successful
show-business career. Blonde, blue-eyed, she had an attractive
figure and, more important, a celebrity name.

Sonja was seven years older than Lee and her fame was waning when
they met. I think mutual need drew them to each other. Together,
they generated more publicity than either one could separately.
The aging skater merited a lot of space in movie magazines and
tabloids when she became the woman Liberace spent his evenings
with.

Lee’s acquaintances describe Sonja as a motherly type; but Lee
told me they had an affair. If he was being honest -- and with
Lee you could never be sure -- it would be his last relationship
with a woman. After the London court case came to an end Lee
never again felt the need to camouflage his true nature by dating
ladies.

In 1959 Lee was completely vindicated and his name cleared. On
June 9, the New York Daily News ran an article under the headline
“I’m No Home, Says Suing Liberace.” Before the year ended he was
completely vindicated; his name and reputation were freed of any
blemish.

Lee’s lawyers had managed a miracle. They’d actually convinced a
judge and jury that black was white. Lee was awarded a $22,500
settlement. He gave every penny of it to charity.

From 1959 on Lee turned to the courts whenever he failed to get
his way by other means. His lawyer soon found that handling
Liberace’s considerable legal affairs provided a lucrative
livelihood. Given Lee’s stubbornness, his power, and his money,
he usually got what he wanted by simply wearing his opponents
down. When Lee and I finally confronted each other in a court of
law, the bitterly contested case dragged on for five years.

In the coming years Lee’s vindication in the British courts would
have one penalty. As America’s social climate became increasingly
liberal, other gays came out of the closet. Lee felt compelled to
keep his silence.

“I can’t admit a thing,” he said, “unless I want to be known as
the world’s biggest liar.”